Re: My music notes, Feb 4, 1998.

I'm not a real doofus, but I play one at a national laboratory. (BAISLEY@fndcd.fnal.gov)
Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:10:22 -0600


Hey Joe, ever heard of The Marzipan Bunnies? I'm still stuck on Throbbing
Gristle, although The League Of Crafty Guitarists (Fripp and pals) is fun.

Cheers,
Wayne

================================================================================
From: Jens Alfke <Jens.Alfke@Sun.COM> via Silent-Tristero.

And you thought "math-rock" was odd...

The scary part is that I spent far too much time in college [and after]
sitting in hallways with people and saying essentialy exactly this kind of
thing. My friend M@ once compared the early Jesus And Mary Chain to a linear
combination of the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground and Joy Division,
which sounds ludicrous except he was 100% correct...

[forwards listening to the Kronos Quartet's version of "Free Bird"]
___________________________________________________________________

Reprinted from The Brunching Shuttlecocks
<http://www.brunching.com/index.html#usref>

The Marzipan Bunnies

by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

Recently, we had an interview with Trevor Valentine and Ron Lapse of
"The Marzipan Bunnies," a San Francisco-based band with a growing
following. Here's what they had to say.

BS: So tell me about your band's sound.

TV: Well, imagine that Jim Morrison had been born in 1973, in the
Ukraine. It's kind of like that, except more punk. With banjos.

RL: Right. It's kind of like ABBA goes hardcore, but without the blond
ones. It's as if you took everything we learned from ska, and ignored
it. It's like a speed-metal Squirrel Nut Zippers.

TV: But without the squirrel.

RL: Right, without the squirrel. It's as if you replaced the squirrel
with a hedgehog or a small side salad, and backed them up with the
horns from Huey Lewis and the News and the synths from the first half
of "Rio."

TV: And had Natalie Merchant sing it.

RL: First getting her really drunk and playing "Mall Madness" for a
while.

TV: And then stuffing her in a trunk with a microphone and having her
do a Tom Waits impression.

RL: Basically, it's a Bananarama for the nineties, only with a early
eighties rockabilly-meets-Kraftwerk sensibility. Except more so.

TV: It's like you did an electrified cover of an acoustic version of
Soul Coughing doing "Horse With No Name," but with new lyrics that
were more like Jack Kerouac getting slapped around by a sort of
folk-rock En Vogue--

RL: --or Michael Stipe wearing Grace Slick's undergarments circa 1978.

TV: And you took all that and used it as the backing track to a sort
of The-Ventures-meet-Van-Halen-at-the-Lilith-Fair techno/Arabic track
that kind of floats in and out of your consciousness like some kind of
hairy insect on Ritalin. That, plus a sort of Elvis Costello minus
Cyndi Lauper stage presence, is basically our band.

BS: Ah. I see. Well, I think that just about does it for my questions.
"The Marzipan Bunnies" will be at The Pillbug Club this Thursday,
opening for "Rorschach Hot Plate Vanguard."

TV: We will?

RL: Yeah, you remember. They're that sort of
Meatloaf-meets-The-Archies band, only without the guitars.

TV: Oh, them. I always thought they were more of an industrial version
of Fun Boy Three with sort of an R&B Tori Amos on lead vocals.

RL: Well, that too.